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End Of! Add in Panels and you don't even need to be a developer to build cool websites, which kills the "you have to be an expert" argument stone dead. And if you are an expert ... *phew* ... there ain't a problem I can't solve with Drupal now I know the API. I'm currently working on an SOA content distribution system, Drupal driven, integrating with Microsoft and other bespoke systems over SOAP and XML-RPC. Can you do that with Joomla?? I doubt it.

Drupal and Joomla are chalk and cheese. Drupal is a serious business tool with a totally abstract approach to data storage and manipulation. You can do ANYTHING with it. Joomla is a traditional CMS with all of the traditional problems as a result.

I first saw a system like Drupal about 7 years ago - some guys were doing something similar in London with MS Access and ASP. It was a long time ago and it disappeared, but conceptually it was the same. Their system blew me away then (they were doing document management for Lambeth Council) and Drupal blows me away now.

You can keep Joomla. It's a Ford to Drupal's Ferrari. Sure, it costs a bit more to run but it works soooo much better!

After some struggling with both, I can say: None! They both get very annoying when it comes to details, stability and so on. Code your own CMS/website!

You must be one of those kinky self-harming sorts, right?

If you really only need a simple, brochure-style website there are dozens of basic CMS' out there which will allow you to build up a simple site without having to write any code. There's a really nice one in Ruby for a start: http://radiantcms.org/

End Of! Add in Panels and you don't even need to be a developer to build cool websites, which kills the "you have to be an expert" argument stone dead. And if you are an expert ... *phew* ... there ain't a problem I can't solve with Drupal now I know the API. I'm currently working on an SOA content distribution system, Drupal driven, integrating with Microsoft and other bespoke systems over SOAP and XML-RPC. Can you do that with Joomla?? I doubt it.

Drupal and Joomla are chalk and cheese. Drupal is a serious business tool with a totally abstract approach to data storage and manipulation. You can do ANYTHING with it. Joomla is a traditional CMS with all of the traditional problems as a result.

I first saw a system like Drupal about 7 years ago - some guys were doing something similar in London with MS Access and ASP. It was a long time ago and it disappeared, but conceptually it was the same. Their system blew me away then (they were doing document management for Lambeth Council) and Drupal blows me away now.

You can keep Joomla. It's a Ford to Drupal's Ferrari. Sure, it costs a bit more to run but it works soooo much better!

I am so with you on this!! I have tried both Joomla and Drupal and always end up coming back to Drupal for its elegance and how absolutely powerful it is. And yes, once you add CCK + Views, you are in Drupal heaven. Yes, it has a somewhat steep learning curve but once you get a handle on it it simply blows your mind. I am by no means a Drupal Guru but I am starting to do some amazing things with it.

If you just want "simple" then by all means keep Joomla. But if you're looking for a scaleable solution that will extend in functionality as your site grows, then yes, go for Drupal. The taxonomy, CCK, Views, Book and other modules will allow you to do awesome things with your content.

Drupal is a serious business tool with a totally abstract approach to data storage and manipulation. You can do ANYTHING with it. Joomla is a traditional CMS with all of the traditional problems as a result.

Well put. Since I started this thread I became pretty much sold up on the Drupal side. I'm now knee-deep in learning the software. The irony is that I registered at Drupal.org nearly two years ago but it didn't impress me so far at the time (the UI was horrible, actually it's still lacking behind).

Originally Posted by marcel

Wordpress beats both Drupal and Joomla.

You have to back up that statement with real hard evidence! Care to elaborate on that?

On that note, your auto-upgrade plug-in is just that - a plug-in. It is not core, there is no guarantee Wordpress will always have it and there is no promise of future development, so it certainly is not a killer feature of the sort simsim was referring to. It too may not be maintained any more without warning and then what will you do? The one feature you can't live without is dead.

That said, it's a neat idea (though I don't imagine most pro SAs would be comfortable using something that black-boxed upgrades - it would be a feature for amateurs only). Anyway, this Drupal 5.x module is core in 6.x onwards:http://drupal.org/project/update_status

It would only be a short step to write some scripts combining the Update Status module with Drupal's auto-installer, update.php, to create this module. Probably a day's work if the demand were there. I will raise it with my current employers, as they want to maintain many Drupal sites. They might even pay me for such a Drupal module.

I didn't mention the fact that Drupal also requires lots of clicking around to get things done. Less than Joomla, but still too much. Add 10+ websites to the mix and your other job duties will suffer.

Because Wordpress is also a simple blogging too with a simple page structure, it's easier to develop brochureware. Let's not even talk about the abundance of awesome and affordable Wordpress themes and developers.

Wordpress has a larger development base... even large than Drupal. I really don't think developers will let that feature disappear for long. Even if it did, it's cheaper to develop plugins for wordpress.

From my experience, Drupal modules take more configuration and tweeking.

On that note, your auto-upgrade plug-in is just that - a plug-in. It is not core, there is no guarantee Wordpress will always have it and there is no promise of future development, so it certainly is not a killer feature of the sort simsim was referring to. It too may not be maintained any more without warning and then what will you do? The one feature you can't live without is dead.

That said, it's a neat idea (though I don't imagine most pro SAs would be comfortable using something that black-boxed upgrades - it would be a feature for amateurs only). Anyway, this Drupal 5.x module is core in 6.x onwards:http://drupal.org/project/update_status

It would only be a short step to write some scripts combining the Update Status module with Drupal's auto-installer, update.php, to create this module. Probably a day's work if the demand were there. I will raise it with my current employers, as they want to maintain many Drupal sites. They might even pay me for such a Drupal module.

Because Wordpress is also a simple blogging too with a simple page structure, it's easier to develop brochureware.

Right, Wordpress is probably great for quick, easy, little websites, but we're not talking about that here. You're way off topic. And I could post (and have posted) half a dozen good, light CMS solutions in a variety of languages.

But all *complex* content management systems (which is what this thread is all about) *will inevitably* ...

[require] lots of clicking around to get things done.

It's a given. The less you install, the less clicking there is to do. I don't need to do very much clicking at all in Drupal if I just install the blog module, build a couple of menus and place some blocks (both of which are drag and drop these days, btw, so hardly any clicking there).

And as for this lot, LOL, drivel! You're making it up as you go along!

Wordpress has a larger development base... even large than Drupal.

it's cheaper to develop plugins for wordpress.

Drupal modules take more configuration and tweeking.

I really don't think developers will let that feature disappear for long.

Of course it would be baseless nonsense to you. With your big "Hire me" offer.
You must be truly unbiased...
The average custom drupal module costs 2 - 3 times more than a Wordpress plugin. Don't even talk about themes.

Anyway, I was sharing my point of view (opinion) with those who asked for it, not trying to waste time arguing with some with a "Hire me" sign.

Because Wordpress is also a simple blogging too with a simple page structure, it's easier to develop brochureware.

See, that's the problem. We ain't talking about simple blogging with a simple page structure or brochureware here. We're talking about complex websites with multiple content types, categories, hierarchies, access roles and user rules and much much more than the most complicated and hacked WordPress website can offer.

Your attitude is that of an entrepreneur, not a web designer or developer. With all due respect, I don't think you're capable of discussing the technical merits of whether Drupal or WordPress is better. Actually you'd have been logical enough if you've compared Drupal to Joomla or other enterprise CMS, but comparing it to WordPress is a wild jump in the dark.

Of course it would be baseless nonsense to you. With your big "Hire me" offer.
You must be truly unbiased...
The average custom drupal module costs 2 - 3 times more than a Wordpress plugin. Don't even talk about themes.

Anyway, I was sharing my point of view (opinion) with those who asked for it, not trying to waste time arguing with some with a "Hire me" sign.

Ohhh, not the sig, not the sig!

Come on now. You can't advise people to build full-scale CM websites with a blogging engine and expect it to go unchallenged? You were challenged and you responded with a load of waffle. All we're waiting for is a shred of practical evidence that Wordpress stacks up against Joomla, Drupal, MS CMS, whatever really. Just something tangible beyond "this plug-in is cool"... Because to my mind (and you've said nothing to sway me or anyone else) it's just a cool blogging engine?

I prefer Joomla as CMS for my websites, but have also tried Drupal and other CMS.
I like Joomla because of it's many extensions, pretty and affordable templates through different template clubs and many more things.

I've been missing a state of the art blogging tool like Wordpress inside Joomla CMS, and this is the reason why I still use Wordpress instead of Joomla CMS when blogging.

I found Drupal to become unwieldy fairly quick when you started implementing custom content types, views and menus to go with them. I was working with developing a Drupal 6 site that had 2000 articles in three content types and custom menus and it quickly grew to be about 5000 queries per page. Strangely enough Drupal 5 handled the same content with less than 1000 queries per page. Styling in Drupal 6 is a lot easier than Drupal 5 though.

Hopefully they solve these issues in Drupal 7 and the new Acquia project.

I couldn't get into Joomla.. Its too rigid and while it has a lot of plugins, there is a lot of garbage in the free ones and the good ones cost more than commercial CMS packages.

Right now I am using Wordpress because its easily malleable and the custom fields for different content doesn't add tremendous overhead. Its also the easiest to customize to fit your needs among the three.

5000 queries per page across all the site? Such ridiculous number of queries have been reported mainly on the modules page on the back-end admin pages, namely admin/build/modules. Is that what you were referring to, Wayne?

Nope it was every page on the site.. One query, rebuilding the settings cache was 10 seconds on every page. Don't know why its called a cache if it has to be rebuilt on every page. Its an issue in Drupal 6. Using Drupal 5 with the same, actually more modules, produced pages faster with a lot fewer queries. Normally in the neighborhood of 120-300 queries in tenths of seconds for processing instead of 10-15 seconds. However Drupal 5 required much more effort than I was willing to invest to edit styles for the system.

Modules page actually loaded fairly quickly as long as a few modules weren't loaded. One, I considered key to my project though and is the ultimate reason why I abandoned Drupal. I had the maximum memory for PHP scripts set to 1 GB on my development box and this module would still throw out of memory errors. I know it was a bug they were looking into but after three months I just had to give up and move on.

I have download Acquia and will install it soon to see if they fixed the issues that I experienced previously.

Well, that's kind of disappointing, however, I don't think this situation pertains to every Drupal installation. I'm running Drupal 6.5 (upgraded) on a local XAMPP installation on WinXP and it works fine except on the modules page on administration pages which is now a known bug in rebuilding the menu router that generates hundreds or even thousands of unnecessary SELECT & UPDATE queries.

I have CCK & Views installed among other resource-extensive modules yet the site functions generally OK. But that might be because of its small size. I don't know how things would perform if it grows into thousands of nodes, users & terms.

Where you developing the site on a localhost server or a live remote server? Depending on either situation, it could be a hardware issue or code issue, and tuning performance would vary accordingly.

And please, don't forget to tell us your conclusions about Acquia when you happen to test it.